A Story

My fascination with music and spirituality began at age four when my grandmother played me the sound track to Jesus Christ Superstar. The impression made by Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan, crooning and screaming as the musical Jesus character, was that the roles of controversial maverick spiritual teacher and rock star are essentially the same. Despite the obvious Christian association, I eventually came to see the drama of Divinity played out off stage at my Uncle Howard's Passover seders. This began a modest annual dip into the ocean of Torah – mere foreplay for what was to come. Growing up in a non-religious home, I explored spirituality in books about religion and the occult. More than once, my parents were called into school to discuss my unhealthy obsession with “black magic.” At the age of twelve, I learned Transcendental Meditation and began meditating regularly. Shortly after, I discovered Kabbalah when my father hired me to xerox transcripts of Kabbalah lectures given by the late Dr. David Scheinkin, who was a student of Rabbi Areyeh Kaplan.

I learned from many books and teachers during my early teen years. One especially potent memory was when a therapist in my father’s medical center gave me a tape of Ram Dass. I listened to it one day as I took a long bus ride. Ram Dass began his talk before a large audience with the word, “Time…” He then proceeded not to finish the sentence, leaving the audience in silent anticipation, until the whole room filled with laughter. It was then that I discovered the present moment.

Parallel to my spiritual explorations, I was also an aspiring child musician/performer. In 1984, my “rap group” landed a contract with Sugar Hill Records. The (kinda dumb) rap song we recorded about video games can be heard today on Rhino Record’s compilation, “History of Rap – The Sugar Hill Records Story.” In High School, current Chochmat HaLev bass player Josh Miele and I recorded original pop tunes with song writer Arthur Resnick (Under the Boardwalk, Good Lovin).’”

In 1985, I attended the High School Summer Jazz Program at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. One day, while procrastinating from piano practice, I found myself in a bookstore, engrossed in a book by Martin Buber. Buber spoke of the essence of Judaism and Hassidism as a lived reality beyond the dogmas and legalities of codified Judaism. Although Buber’s writings are extremely difficult to understand, something in them struck a chord with a deep, non-verbal intuition that had been growing within me for some time: that spirituality, in essence, is not defined by religious complexities or mystical ideas, but by the simple quality of one’s relationship with the reality of what is, moment by moment.

One summer day in 1987, I had been doing some prolonged meditative practices with a friend for several hours. This led to a 'spiritual awakening' of sorts, in which the question mark of life seemed to be transformed into an exclamation point. All personal struggles dropped away, and it became obvious that the answer was to “live for G-d.” The experience did not last, however, and it was at that point that I really became a seeker, searching for the simple and ultimate liberation of that experience.

Although I had not heard of “Jewish Renewal,” I had heard of Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, and I went to visit him in his home in Philadelphia to ask his advice. We sat and I told him about my experience. He advised me that I should learn everything I could about traditional Judaism, but I should also learn from Zen. Particularly, he wanted me to learn from Zen how to “be with t’filin” and instructed me to meditate with t’filin and talis.

In the Fall of ’87 I went off to pursue a bachelor's degree in music composition at the Eastman School. Following Reb Zalman’s advice, I explored Orthodox Judaism, learning with the local Chabad rabbi. It was during those four years of music school that I first connected to traditional Jewish living, as well as Hassidic singing and story telling. However, there was something missing. At the end of the day, Chabad Judaism was dependent on Orthodox ideology; it did not lead beyond religion to the simplicity that I was searching for.

After graduating in 1991, I moved to the Bay Area. In 1993, after giving up a potentially successful career as a corrupt salesman of heating and air conditioning systems, I began teaching piano for a living. In the mid-nineties, I started a Jewish progressive rock band called Captain Zohar.

Throughout the nineties, my search took the form of thinking and writing. In 1998, I realized that all of my thinking and writing did not bring me even one step closer to the Truth. It was then that it occurred to me that perhaps it was the thinking mind itself that was preventing access to the simple liberation I was searching for. In that moment, I made a vow to constantly receive the present moment as it presented itself without excess thinking, judgment or interpretation. I was beginning to take the second half of Reb Zalman’s advice.

This precipitated a second awakening process which lasted for about a week. Unlike the first experience eleven years earlier, this was not a temporary glimpse, but rather an initiation into the way of being that I had sought after. But it too was not an endpoint. It was, in a sense, the opening of a door. In order to walk through that door and continue to explore what is on the other side, I needed help. It soon became apparent to me that Judaism offered the help I needed; it is a life-practice which continually points me in the direction of exploring what is beyond that door. With this realization was born “Torah of Awakening” – my work as an instigator of spiritual awakening in people within a Jewish context.

I called Reb Zalman again and told him what happened. He suggested that I connect with some particular people in the Bay Area, and this led me to Avram Davis and the Berkeley Jewish meditation center, Chochmat HaLev. During the next few years, I became involved with CHL, where I helped create the popular musical Friday night services through band direction and composition of original prayer music. I became certified as a Jewish Meditation teacher through CHL and continued my Jewish learning informally.

Today I work with Rabbi SaraLeya Schley as a spiritual teacher and music director. I live in Oakland with my wife Lisa and our son Eidan and daughter Anyah, to whom I owe constant gratitude for keeping me on a true path and far away from cheap, egocentric and hedonistic substitutes for G-d.